Press Releases

Orthopedic Surgeon and Neurosurgeon Share Leadership
Of Unusual Interdisciplinary Program

Neurosurgeon Artem Y. Vaynman, MD, and orthopedic surgeon Philip Fontanetta, MD, have been named co-chiefs of spine surgery and the physician leaders of the hospital's new Spine Endeavor Program. The innovative program coordinates the use of the latest advanced minimally-invasive techniques of both specialties for the treatment of chronic back, neck and leg pain, herniated discs, spinal stenosis, vertebral compression fractures, degenerative scoliosis and other spinal problems.

Dr. Vaynman, who joined the Medical Staff at Mercy in 2007, is part of Neurological Surgery, P.C., the largest private neurosurgery practice on Long Island and in the New York Tristate area, with Nassau County offices in Great Neck and Rockville Centre. Dr. Fontanetta joined the Medical Staff at Mercy in 1981, and has been in practice at Western Nassau Orthopaedic Associates in Mineola for three decades.

Dr. Fontanetta, who resides in Manhasset, earned his medical degree at New York Medical College in Valhalla and did his post-graduate training at the University of California, Davis Sacramento Medical Center and Montreal Children's Hospital, McGill University in Quebec, Canada.

Dr. Vaynman, who resides in Great Neck, earned his medical degree at SUNY-Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, where he received the Jadwin Honor Scholarship, a Clinical Excellence Award. He then served as Resident in General Surgery and Resident in Neurosurgery at the New Jersey Medical School University Hospital in Newark, NJ and then became Chief Resident in Neurosurgery at Hackensack University Medical Center, followed by his position as Chief Resident in Neurosurgery, at the New Jersey Medical School University Hospital, in Newark.